Here is a travel tip useful in every city in the world: if you don’t want to be ripped off, walk a few blocks away from the train station or bus station, and then hail a taxi. In my train stupor I forgot this and the waiting predatory taxi driver wanted to charge me 100 RMB for a 16 RMB cab ride. I just looked at him and laughed. When I opened the door, he pantomimed that just for me he would do it for the bargain price of 50 RMB. Exactly two blocks away I flagged down a taxi and showed him the address, written in Chinese. When I asked him how much it would cost, he looked at me as if I were an imbecile and gruffly pointed to the meter. And away we went; cab fare to the hotel: 14 RMB. At the front desk, I waited while the clerk gave directions to an English-speaking chap, then conveyed that I had a room reservation made by my friends, Paul and Claire. Suddenly, the man was back. He had come with Paul and Claire and knew that I was expected. And just like that, I had found my people. It was still very early so we decided to go get breakfast. His name was Pat, and also like Paul and Claire he was from the United Kingdom, and they all taught English in the same city in China. As we were searching for breakfast in the Tibetan Quarter we stumbled upon a bizarre scene. There, right on the streets of Chengdu, an ultra-modern city in most respects, a man and woman were murdering a chicken with a meat cleaver, draining blood and guts down onto the curb and into the gutter. While I was taking photos, they calmly whacked another chicken, which, although headless, flapped its wings furiously in protest. I looked at Pat who shrugged as if to say—hey, this is China. We went on to breakfast, as the sun was painting fluid, light-splattered mosaics, transforming the dingy tiled sidewalks into tapestries of sun energy and brightness. I was wandering Chengdu with four other teachers: Paul and Claire I met in Xian during our teacher certification. They brought along Pat, and Andy who is from the United States. Teachers are moving encyclopedias. Compulsive communicators. Wave-particle duality, E=mc2. Following the focus of their individual curiosity kept me constantly entertained. Mainly, the courtesy they showed to their host country matched my own and made me smile. To be again around enthusiastic conversationalists made the 22-hour trip more than worth it. English, English, English, was exploding in my ears like another kind of firecrackers. To be freely comparing, sharing, conversing—in my mind I was breathless, blowing out low baritone sax notes of enthusiasm, energized by the simple give and take of normal conversation. To not have to explain everything, to be instantly understood, to share a foreign perspective was bliss on top of bliss, like triple-banking the eight ball into the side pocket. On the lunar New Year’s eve, we wandered the sprawling Wuhou Temple grounds, a kind of Chinese Disneyland, with Buddhist temples, Starbucks and a fabricated ‘Old China’ street, all in honor of some famous general I was later told was like the Chinese Abe Lincoln.
We sampled almost every available food—except for mackerel on a stick—including fried sparrow, which is plucked, then cooked whole and you eat it all, bones included. The weirdest thing I bought was some kind of fishy meatballs, served in a to-go container of three, covered with mayonnaise and shavings of a vegetable that tasted vaguely like bacon. Yet the weirdest thing was to come as we neared midnight. Making our way to the courtyard in front of the main temple, we encountered an international scene of absurdity. First there were the traditional troughs where burning incense was placed. But you had to pay a hefty fee to buy bundles of incense and other offerings and it made me think again how religion and money are always intertwined. Around the courtyard were 4 firemen, 12 monks in robes, 21 policemen and their commander, adults in panda hats, wishes and prayers rising on aromatic fumes, and on a large TV screen, Mexican mariachis played loud, brassy music, and as midnight approached, a band of young Russian dancers came to life, dancing Russian versions of salsa and merengue, very graceful, but in my mind it was like Doctor Zhivago and Lara puking on tequila, while fireworks exploded, the policemen parted and allowed access to the burning incense troughs, a few people embraced, yet the whole scene was stilted somehow, as if everyone was confused as to what country they were in, yet maybe that was just my take on it. Still, I was happy to be bitten by the Year of the Snake as we followed the marching policeman back out and onto the street where Paul and Claire bought fireworks that we exploded in front of our hotel in order to scare away evil spirits and give us all a fighting chance for luck in the brand new reptile year. The last thing I remember was saying silent prayers to all my friends and loved ones as a Chinese lantern rose into the sky and disappeared into the universe. Part 4 will follow.
1 Comment
Mary
3/5/2013 03:10:20 am
Great photos of your friends it makes the reading more interesting (if you can imagine that)! What a blessing to be around friends for this Year of the Snake Chinese New Year!! ~ "You pass through places and places pass through you. But you carry them with you on the soles of your travelling shoes." - The Be Good Tanyas ~ Keep having fun and new experiences..love ya, M
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
|